1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an alternate printing process in a pull printing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is conventionally proposed a pull printing system in which a printing apparatus such as a MFP, a client personal computer (PC) thereof, a bibliographic information server for managing print data and a storage server for storing the print data are connected through a network (refer to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-99714).
In this type of pull printing systems, a user stores print data from the PC in the storage server and the whereabouts of the print data and user information are registered in the bibliographic information server for managing the print data. The user performs authentication from an operation panel of the MFP, thereby selecting its print data registered in the bibliographic information server and downloads the data from the storage server for printing.
In the pull printing system as described above, the print data are in advance registered and thereby the user can perform a print of the print data in any image forming apparatus in correspondence to user's convenience or a crowd condition of the image forming apparatus. Therefore, the pull printing system has an advantage that the convenience enhances. Further, in a case of actually printing, since it is usual for a user to use an image forming apparatus by its side, theft of a print document can be prevented.
In this way, the pull printing system is configured such that convenience and security for a user are taken into account, but a user authenticated by user authentication can print only print data registered by its self. Therefore, the user who has registered the print data is also required to make an instruction of print output by user self, raising a problem of being incapable of requesting another user to print in place of the user.
As a conventional method of solving this problem, there is proposed a system in which an alternate user ID and an alternate password are issued, a first user is authenticated with this alternate user ID and the alternate password, and a part of the authority which a second user owns is given to the first user (refer to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-119719). The invention described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-119719 is configured such that the first user logs in using the alternate user ID and the alternate password notified by the second user, and thereafter, by inputting the user ID which the first user owns, the first user can acquire alternate authority of the second user.